


With Full Strength

by cookinguptales



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Gen, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookinguptales/pseuds/cookinguptales
Summary: Summer doesn't know when her grandpa's coming back -- but when he does, she'll be ready for him.





	With Full Strength

**Author's Note:**

> I've been taking requests for ficlets in return for $5 donations to charity over on my tumblr, and deadybones asked for R&M gen about the "odd but supportive family bond" that Summer and Rick share. They also requested Nazi-punching, which canon was kind enough to give me on its own. lol
> 
> Set between seasons 2 and 3.

They didn't say much about Grandpa Rick these days. Sometimes, though, when her mother was soaked so thoroughly in wine that the glass no longer shook in her hand, when her father was all puffed up on false praise and empty promotions, when Morty's eyes went lined and hard and unfamiliar... Sometimes they talked. Those nights, they called Rick a phony. A liar. An empty husk of a man, all equations and cruelty, who was never a real part of their family. Not really.

But Summer remembered him differently. Sure, he wasn't exactly the Hallmark grandfather that some of her friends had, but Grandpa Rick had taught her a lot. He'd taught her how to see through lies and cut through bullshit. He'd taught her that they were all floating through an unfeeling cosmos, but that they could reach out and brush fingers with each other sometimes, maybe. If they were lucky. He'd taught her the red-hot satisfaction that came from fist against flesh and the sizzle of burning skin. He taught her righteousness and outrage and she'd taught _herself_ that she was strong enough to use it.

The family hadn't really noticed when she'd gotten her first job, and they hadn't really noticed when she'd been betrayed by her first prick of a boss. They hadn't noticed the muscles, either, or the training. They hadn't noticed the one goddamn time that Rick had focused on her more than anyone else. More than aliens or monsters or fucking Morty. Just her and Grandpa Rick and the burn of anger and steroids pumping through bodies pushed to the limit.

It'd felt good seeing the devil go down. The literal one, of course, the one that had reached inside her and taken some of that trust that hadn't quite managed to exhaust itself, not yet, and had squeezed it out. But also the devil in a stranger's eyes. It had felt so damn good to beat the devil out of humanity that day, to kick in the spine of a bully and to punch the shit out of a Nazi. It had felt like beating down the devil inside herself, the one that whispered that maybe none of this was really worth it. Maybe faith and trust were for children, and justice and justification were one and the same. She'd beaten back the doubt in herself, and it had been Grandpa Rick who'd helped her do it. Who'd given her that.

She could remember the elation she'd felt when he'd looked at her with something like pride, and she could remember how damn much it'd hurt when he stopped showing up to their training sessions. But alone or not, she'd kept training. Every day, one, two, three. Bag and track and agility. The steroids weren't necessary anymore, and neither were all those muscles. It was her backbone she relied on now. It had gotten her through a dozen worlds and twice as many close calls, and it was the muscle memory of a punch landed and justice served that had saved her skin more times than she could count.

They were quiet now, all of them. None of them talked about Grandpa Rick, not where the sun could see. But she went out behind that tiny house of theirs now, not every morning (what the hell were mornings in this place, anyway?) but whenever her muscles told her it was time. Punch, dodge, kick, block. Practice, practice, practice. She couldn't hear her Grandpa Rick's voice anymore, not from him, not parroted from the mouth of her little brother. But she felt its effects. She could feel the oppressive weight of a genius's expectations, the staggering loss that accompanied his disappointment. She felt the ragged hole in her that widened every day, the gap where something intrinsic had been before he'd flown off with it in his grasp. And she felt the strength that supported her now, indomitable, muscles and mind and iron backbone. She felt the drive, the fire, the poison that coursed through her veins. It hardened her. It inspired her. It even scared her a little. But her grandfather's brilliance, or his madness, was a little addictive like that.

So she fought shadows and memories painted on the pavement. She covered up the sounds of her mother's muffled sobs with fists against a bag. 

She waited for Grandpa Rick to come home.


End file.
